


The Force of Gravity's No Realer Than the Fire

by a_salty_alto



Series: Extended Cut [1]
Category: Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone except Yu and Minato are film versions not the actual characters, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, POV Alternating, Persona 4 Spoilers, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_salty_alto/pseuds/a_salty_alto
Summary: Normal visits to Tartarus and the TV World lead to strange movie screens, and Minato and Yu wake up in a strange labyrinth with no clue where their friends are.





	The Force of Gravity's No Realer Than the Fire

Minato slowly picks himself off the cobblestone road. Tartarus seems to have given way to open cityscape. The early morning fog means he can't see too far beyond his own general vicinity.

"Fuuka?" He calls. There's a sinking feeling in his gut the longer he waits for a reply. "Aigis? Yukari? Junpei?" 

Minato sighs. "Great," he mutters. He knows next to nothing about where he is or what actually happened, so the best option is probably to just pick a direction and start walking.

There's a restaurant nearby that looks closed, but there's a menu lying on the table. Minato digs around in his pocket and pulls out a pen, making a note of where he's been. It doesn't take him long to realize that wherever this place is, it certainly isn't built like a normal city. Cities aren't littered with winding roads and dead ends like this place is.

They also aren't this empty. At first, Minato chocks it up to it being early, but the sun doesn't seem to be getting any higher. Nothing's progressing here.

Eventually, the monotony is broken up by someone rushing past him, quickly pursued by a group of what looks like police, and Minato follows them.

The girl is cornered by the police when she runs down an alley. Minato arrives just in time to see the policemen warp into shadows and attack the girl.

Minato wastes no time calling Orpheus to reduce them to ash, though it's a bit of a closer call than he'd like. He really needs to find his friends.

Minato turns to the girl. She's pretty short, and has long blonde hair that's decorated with white flower clips. "Are you alright?" Minato asks.

The girl sorts out her light blue cardigan and the yellow ruffles of her shirt, while replying in French.

Damn it, he should've paid more attention to Mitsuru.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand." Minato says. The girl repeats herself, then frowning when it becomes obvious Minato is completely lost.

She grabs his hand, looking very intently at his palm.

"Um, what are you-" 

She ignores him and heads to the mouth of the alley, checking to make sure the coast is clear. After a minute, she motions for Minato to follow her, even grabbing his arm to make sure he keeps up.

"Where are we going?" Minato whispers. The girl continues talking in French, and guessing from her tone, Minato assumes she's pointing out that he wouldn't understand any explanation she could give him.

"Fine, at least tell me your name?"

The girl smiles. "Je m'appelle Rei."

* * *

Yu breathes heavily as he defeats the last of the shadows. His companion doesn't give him a moment to rest, charging forward.

"Wait!" Yu pants. "Zen, wait!"

"Hurry up. You're wasting time." Zen snaps.

Yu wants to laugh. Wasting time, doesn't he know it? He's in some sort of shadow-infested Paris, when he should be in the TV World. 

The fog is going to come in soon…

Yu shakes his head to clear out his thoughts. Now's not the time. He has to focus on the task at hand, which is finding the rest of the Investigation Team. Hopefully helping Zen with the person he's looking for will help with that- or keep Yu distracted enough from the fact that he has no clue how he got here or where his friends are, no way of contacting them, and the fog is going to come in s-

Nope. Nopenopenope.

Yu steels himself. He's no use if he's panicking.

"How much further is this meeting spot?" Yu asks. 

Zen pulls a silver pocket watch out of his jeans and glances at it quickly. 

"It's not that far, and almost time. If we make a break for it-"

"And get the attention of more shadows?" Yu says. "Zen, I can't keep fighting these things on my own. I'm sure Rei cares more that you're in one piece than that you're on time."

Zen doesn't object, but he doesn't look happy about it either. He stares at the clock tattoo on the palm of his hand.

"Fine." He mutters.

Yu relaxes a bit. 

They take the long way to the meeting spot, midmorning sun beaming down on them. They pass countless posters proclaiming Paris the "City of Love" and encouraging people to "Embrace their love." Yu hears the same snippets of conversation on repeat as they pass crowds on the way to work, almost like a scratched record.

_ "I love you so much, honey." _

_ "They're perfect for each other." _

_ "I'm so glad that relationships are so easy." _

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in Yu's mouth, but he can't exactly put why into words.

They also pass the occasional policeman looking for "loveless outlaws," which Yu takes to mean himself and Zen.

To add a final cherry of weirdness to the top of a cake that's already pretty damn weird, "soulmates" are brought up more than once.

Yu doesn't know what to make of it all.

They arrive at the meeting spot, near a set of stairs someplace relatively free of shadows. Zen checks his pocket watch again. "We're early," he mutters, more to himself than Yu. "She'll be here."

"So why do you have to be so secretive?" Yu asks.

Zen doesn't reply. He just paces back and forth in front of the stairs, absorbed in his own world.

Yu starts folding the map he'd been drawing on an old receipt he'd found on the street into a crane to keep his mind from wandering too much when two figures come down the stairs.

"Zen!"

"Rei!"

The two embrace, but Yu's eye is drawn to the person who came with Rei. It's a boy in a Gekkoughan uniform and headphones.

"Rei, who's this?" Zen asks, echoing Yu's own thoughts.

"He can fight the police, Zen!" Rei says excitedly. "He helped me get here!"

"Hi. I don't speak French, so I can't actually understand what you're saying, but I'm Minato Arisato."

"She said you helped her get here." Yu explains. "Are you a Persona user by any chance?"

Minato's unobscured eye widens. "Oh thank god, someone I can understand. Yeah, I'm a Persona user. Did you lose your friends too?"

Yu nods. "It seems we're in the same boat then. Any clue what's going on?"

"All I know is I was in Tartarus one second, then everything started going crazy, and now I'm here."

"Tartarus?"

"Yeah, you know. Giant tower that appears during the Dark Hour, full of shadows?"

"Dark Hour? Sorry, I don't know what exactly you're talking about." Yu says. "But, the place where we go to fight shadows started acting weird too, before it spit me out here."

"This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Minato sighs.

"Then I guess we should probably try and stick with Zen and Rei. I've got a feeling we can trust them."

"Yeah, me too. But neither of them fight, right?" Minato smiles and sticks out his hand. "So looks like for now, we're partners."

"Agreed," Yu says, taking his hand. "My name is Yu Narukami."

* * *

"Your French is pretty good." Minato says after a battle. Shadows had jumped them at the stairs, so Zen wants to go somewhere more covered to explain. Time isn't passing normally here either, but at least now it's perpetually 8 AM instead of the crack of dawn.

"Thanks. My parents travel around a lot for work, and I picked up a few languages along the way." Yu says. "So, what do your parents do?"

"They're dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Minato shrugs. "It's fine. Some people have 'em, some people don't. It's just how life goes. Do your parents know about your shadow-related extracurriculars?"

Yu bursts out laughing. "Oh my  _ god _ , no. They're abroad doing business. I haven't heard from them all year."

"So the relationship there isn't great?"

"It's... strictly professional." Yu says after a minute. 

"Oh." 

"Nous arrivons!" Rei announces.

She and Zen gesture to a café, _ L'Horloge _ . There's an entrance in the alley next to it that they slip into.

"Finally." Minato all but collapses into a chair once they get inside.

"What I wouldn't give for some of the shrine fox's leaves." Yu says as he comes to sit down next to him.

"Is that a new way of saying weed?"

"No there's a literal fox that lives at a shrine who we take to the TV World and sells us these weird leaves" Yu explains.

"You buy weed from a fox?"

"It's not weed," Yu sounds annoyed, but he's smiling. "It just restores our energy so we can fight shadows longer." 

Minato laughs. "I'm just messing with you. Think your fox is with your friends?"

Yu frowns. "No, I couldn't find her before we left so we went in without her. We don't have time to waste. The longer we take..." Yu trails off.

Zen says something quickly in French that rouses Yu from his thoughts.

"D'accord, desoleé." Yu says, then turns to Minato. "They're going to explain things now."

Minato nods, so Zen and Rei start explaining as Yu translates.

"This is a world where everyone is born with a mark on their palm." Zen says. He and Rei each hold out a hand, showing a clock face and a rabbit, respectively. "Each mark has one exact match, and that's the person you're destined to fall in love with and marry. But as you can see, ours don't match, which means we're not allowed to be together. I'm supposed to fall in love with a girl named Rhea- who I do love, but like a sister."

Rei slips her hands into Zen's. "The person who shared my mark, her name was Yuki. We were best friends at the hospital where we grew up, until she died. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I'm not supposed to fall in love with anyone else. I'm supposed to die, alone."

"Is there anything we can do?" Minato asks. Yu translates the question with the same concern on his face.

Zen and Rei both say something at the same time.

"Uh... repetez, si vous-plait?" Yu asks.

Zen says something, and Rei looks at him angrily.

"What are they arguing about?" Minato whispers.

"Rei just wants to leave the city, while Zen wants to show us to the mayor."

"Why?"

"Apparently since we don't have soulmates, we can prove that the system is fallible. This mayor guy they keep talking about apparently just wants what's best for people, and thinks strictly enforcing soulmate pairs is the best way to spread peace and love. If he sees people without the soulmate marks, he'll realize those aren't the sole definers of happiness."

Minato crosses his arms. "I can see both sides, I guess. Is there any guarantee the thing with the mayor would work?"

"Doesn't seem like it." Yu says. "Still, I'm inclined to agree with Zen, if only because it might give us a chance to find our friends sooner."

"But it wouldn't be that inconvenient to help them get outside the city then find them. At least they'd be safe and we'd be able to move around more easily."

"Yeah, you've got a point." Yu sighs. "Either way, that's a lot of shadows we're going to have to fight our way through."

"Scared?" Minato says. "Tell you what, if we run into anything too big, I'll protect you."

Yu stares at him, then Minato bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. That was so cheesy-"

"I liked it." Yu says softly.

"Really?"

Before Minato can really process that, there’s a bang at the door.

“Odds they just want to use the bathroom?” Minato asks.

_ “I’ve _ certainly never been that lucky.”

Zen moves in front of Rei while Yu and Minato prepare to fight. Sure enough the shadows break the door down.

He and Yu manage to fend them off, but then Minato's evoker gets knocked out of his hand. He sees the shadow ready for a second attack and braces for impact.

The hit never comes, however, and Minato opens his eyes to see Yu standing in front of him.

Yu collapses to the ground.

Minato grabs his evoker and rushes over to him. "Yu! Yu are you alright?" 

"Y-yeah, I'm-" Yu winces. 

Minato casts fire at the shadows, and puts a wall of flames between them. Minato kneels down in front of Yu and pulls him into his lap.

Yu's got a nasty gash on his head, and there seems to be a slightly purple tinge to his skin.

"Shit, you've been poisoned." Minato mutters.

"S-sorry."

"Don't worry about it. You hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that." Minato grabs a cloth napkin from a nearby bin and presses it to Yu's forehead. "Zen, Rei, you guys run."

They don't move.

"Guys,  _ run _ ! We'll be fine." Minato snaps.

Zen seeks to get it and grabs Rei's hand. They disappear into the smoke, just as more shadows break through.

* * *

Yu feels like he's been stuffed inside of Teddie's costume, rolled down a bumpy hill, and landed in a pile of weapons.

He opens his eyes slowly, and zeroes in on the man making a speech at a podium. Everything seems to freeze in place once Yu recognizes him.

"Namatame," he mutters. Yu pushes himself onto his knees. "Namatame!" he shouts. "Where's Nanako?"

The man looks annoyed to have his speech interrupted. "Who?"

Yu's nails bite into his palm as he crushes his card to summon Izanagi and forces himself to stand up.

"Yu!" Minato calls.

Yu finally registers that there are people here aside from Namatame. He has Izanagi attack the guards surrounding Minato, who in turn summons Orpheus.

With Minato accounted for, Yu turns back to Namatame.

"Now, where is Nanako?" Yu asks as he stalks over to the "mayor"

"I d-don't know who that is!" Namatame whimpers. He keeps repeating himself, and Yu is a second away from breaking the guys nose when he realizes that Namatame isn't lying.

"What the hell?" Yu mutters. The anger that was fueling him dissipates, and Yu stumbles backwards. What the hell is going on here?

"Yu, let's go!" Minato shouts. 

Yu follows him in a daze and doesn't even pay attention to where they're going, until he all but crumples onto the street.

"'M sorry," Yu mutters, "I-

"Did not have the energy for that? I can tell."

Minato helps Yu sit up against the wall of a building. “Ok so what’s your deal with that guy?”

“My friends and I are trying to catch a serial killer.” Yu explains. “They kidnap their victims and throw them into the TV World, where the victim will be killed by their own shadow if we don’t rescue them in time.”

“And Namatame is that killer?”

Yu nods. “We managed to pinpoint him as the kidnapper and he… he ran into the TV World with my cousin.”

“So that’s Nanako?”

“Yeah. I only met her this year when I came to Inaba, but she’s become like my little sister. If I let anything happen to her-”

“This isn’t your TV world.” Minato says. “You said so yourself, and besides how would I have gotten here? So whoever that is, he’s not the Namatame you know, and Nanako isn’t here either.”

“I know. I know, I snapped when I shouldn’t have. If the others saw me like that-”

Minato sits down next to him. “Hey, you’re their leader, right? I’m sure they understand you’re under a lot of stress.”

Yu smiles “Yeah.” 

Minato doesn’t return the gesture.

“You know.” he says, “you have this thing you do sometimes where you smile like your about to cry.”

Yu’s shoulders slouch. “It’s just I act as their leader, but I’m sure I’d be nothing without them. My friends faced their Shadows, and came out stronger for it, but I never met mine. To make up for that, though I’ve had my friends to help me mature. It’s my companions that I draw strength form in all this, and now I don’t know where they are or if they’re alright.”

“Well, I’m here. You can lean on me too.”

Yu doesn’t say anything, just leans his head against Minato’s shoulder.

Eventually, Minato hears a soft snoring. He moves to get up and leave Yu alone, but a hand grabs his sleeve.

“Wait.” Yu murmurs, “Don’t move away, not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey thanks for reading! If you liked this, maybe check out my [ Tumblr](https://yusuke-of-valla.tumblr.com/)


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